Season Long vs. Daily Fantasy Sports

Traditional Season Long Fantasy Leagues

The Fantasy Sports Industry started out in the 1980’s and 1990’s with what we now refer to as “traditional” or “season long” fantasy games.  In these types of leagues, the action takes place starting in the preseason with a draft or auction, and then it lasts until the end of the season with the fantasy playoffs.  In fantasy football, for example, the draft generally takes place in July or August, and then after 14 or 15 weeks of competition, the winner of the league is crowned sometime in December.

Daily Fantasy Sports

With the introduction of Daily Games a few years ago, the landscape changed dramatically for DFS style games.  Instead of waiting an entire season to crown a winner, the entire game takes place in one day. Participants pay the entry fee in the morning, and then find out the results in the evening. In order to accommodate this new format, a lot of the traditional aspects of fantasy leagues had to be modified.

• Instead of a draft that takes hours or days, a salary cap system is used instead, and a roster is selected from a list of players with dollar values within a minute or two.
• Instead of submitting a lineup each week, your entire roster is used for the games that day.
• Instead of making trades and waiver wire pickups throughout the year to try to improve your team each week, you just enter a new contest the next day.

Even Roger Goodell weighed in on the differences between DFS and season long in this article.